Reading Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, I’m thinking Henchard has one of the Top Ten (Top Five?) Hangover Moments in Literature. Beyond waking up/coming to—in a tent! at a country fair!—with the standard panicked motives of, like, do I still have all my personal effects about me, do I feel barfy, etc., there’s the terrible moment where the shards of memory are pieced together: “Did I auction off my wife and baby daughter to a sailor? Ah, yup!”
You really can’t best that in a round of “And how trashed did you get last night?” It’s like, “Oh, you’re abashed because you’re slinking home in yesterday’s outfit? Please. I will see your drunken shenanigans and RAISE YOU.”
